Letters: Apr. 25, 1969

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Measuring the Military

Sir: It seems tragically ironic and somehow grotesquely paradoxical to juxtapose the pictures of General Eisenhower's burial and the cover story on the growing influence of the military [April 11]. Ike's entire career, both as military man and as President, was a tacit denial of the monolithic attitudes as presently displayed by those who now wield the clubs of nuclear power. Perhaps, in the inexorable march of history, his passing marked the end of military men who are able to be as constructive in peace as they are in war. General Shoup's description of professional soldiers reminds me of a finely tuned car that sets records at Indianapolis but is inept in traffic.

PETER W. STINE Assistant Professor of English Gordon College Wenham, Mass.

Sir: Our military career people must feel pretty frustrated to find themselves blamed for failures that are manifestly the result of political constraints. The ironic part is that if we neglect our defenses and spurn our defenders, another Pearl Harbor may occur. Then public feeling will well up, and courting of our soldiers will once again be in style. As Rudyard Kipling wrote of the peacetime military man nearly 80 years ago:

It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an'

"chuck 'im out, the brute," But it's "Savior of 'is Country" when

the guns begin to shoot.

JOHN W. KERSTETTER Apollo, Pa.

Civility Above Stability

Sir: I wouldn't normally quibble about one word; however, this one word is very important. In your cover story on "Rage and Reform on Campus" [April 18], you quote me as characterizing the style of the university by rationality and stability. Actually, the wire services earlier made the same error in reporting a press conference here. Probably it's my own fault for not enunciating more clearly. The word I actually used was civility, which is much more important for universities today than stability. Civility becomes increasingly vital if university people—faculty, students and administration—are to discuss instead of demand, reason rather than shout, mutually respect rather than mutually recriminate, depend on ideas for persuasion rather than four-letter words, and confer with rather than confront each other.

Stability is something else, probably unlikely as universities face a changing world they have helped to change and must change yet more, and themselves, too, in the process. Rationality and civility—these are the great university virtues at the heart of our problem. If they are lost, we are lost.

(THE REV.) THEODORE M. HESBURGH President University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Ind.

A Modest Proposal

Sir: Noting your article, "Sad Sam," on Mayor Yorty [April 11], I seriously considered running for the office of mayor of Los Angeles but decided against it, particularly as I would be running against my friend Sam Yorty, for whom I have a high regard both as a man and as the mayor of our city.